Over the last two decades three-dimensional display technology has matured. Three-dimensional (3D) display devices add a third dimension (depth) to the viewing experience by providing each of the viewer's eyes with different views of the scene that is being watched.
As a result we now have various ways to view three-dimensional image/video signals. On the one hand we have glasses based three-dimensional display system where a user is presented with distinct images for her/his left eye and right eye. On the other hand we have auto-stereoscopic three-dimensional display systems that provide the un-aided eye of a viewer with a three-dimensional view of a scene.
In glasses-based system the active/passive glasses provide a filter for separating the distinct images as presented on the screen for the respective eye of the viewer. In glasses-free or auto-stereoscopic systems the devices quite often are multi-view displays that use light directing means, e.g. in the form of a barrier or lenticular, to direct a left image to the left eye and a right image to the right eye
In order to provide content for use with stereoscopic multi-view display devices, various input formats have been designed over time, in particular also for device interfaces, between content delivery devices such as set-top boxes, Blu-ray players on the one hand and display/rendering devices such as televisions on the other hand.
Over time a variety of formats has been defined for the transfer of video data over device interfaces, such as HDMI, DVI or DisplayPort. With the introduction of stereoscopic image rendering and auto-stereoscopic displays a further need appeared for providing content for use in stereoscopic image rendering. One such format is the disclosed in PCT application WO2006/137000(A1), which relates to a format that describes how image and depth information, and optionally occlusion image and occlusion depth may be transferred in a matrix form over an existing device interface such as HDMI. The general idea behind this approach was to re-use the existing standardized device interface in order to deliver content to new auto-stereoscopic display devices.
More recently the HDMI device interface format has been adapted to also handle video data for use in stereoscopic image generation as is disclosed in the document “High-Definition Multimedia Interface Specification Version 1.4a Extraction of 3D Signaling Portion”, which is available for download from the HDMI web-site using the following link: http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/specification.aspx.